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Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard.
November 15, 2006

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country... Read on...

Books On Soldiers And Warfare
May 27, 2006

For Memorial Day, a former Marine James Webb salutes these military books Read on...

Caspar Willard Weinberger
March 31, 2006

ARLINGTON, Va. -- From the window of my office I can see the flag pole on the main hilltop of historic Fort Myer, where high ranking officers, including the Army's Chief of Staff, have resided for more than a century. The flag is at half-mast, as it always is when great tragedies occur or when noteworthy Americans have died. Read on...

Secret GOP Weapon: The Scots-Irish Vote
October 19, 2004

To an outsider George W. Bush's political demeanor seems little more than stumbling tautology (I had to actually look that word up, don't have a New England Ivy League education - Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.). He utters his campaign message in clipped phrases, filled with bravado and repeated references to God, and to resoluteness of purpose. But to a trained eye and ear these performances have the deliberate balance of a country singer at the Grand Ole Opry. Read on...

Is Hollywood Pro-Military Now?
March 25, 2002

Except for the special case of movies about World War II, it has been a long time since we have seen a major film that shows modern American soldiers fighting hard battles with courage, dignity and a sense of purpose. And now we have two. "Black Hawk Down," directed by the highly-regarded Ridley Scott ("Gladiator"), is set on the chaotic streets of Mogadishu in 1993, and has grossed $110 million since its wide release two months ago. It also snared four Academy Award nominations. "We Were Soldiers," which tells the story of those who fought America's first major battle against the North Vietnamese Army in late 1965, stars Mel Gibson and took in $53 million in its first 17 days. Read on...

A New Doctrine for New Wars
November 30, 2001

For more than a decade, our military has been conducting its world-wide activities without a clearly articulated doctrine that would dictate the size and makeup of its forces and the acceptable uses to which they would be put. So long as the Soviet Union remained a threat, this glaring omission could be overlooked, since the military was sized and positioned in a way that could allow it to adapt to lesser contingencies. The buildup in the Gulf War was a direct product of this Cold War positioning, as many of the units deployed to Saudi Arabia were shifted from Europe. Read on...

The Consequence of War
May 1, 2001

The Vietnamese government is happy to trot out witnesses from the supposed atrocity conducted by Bob Kerrey's Navy SEAL's at Thanh Phong. It is doubtful that they would be so cooperative if questions were asked about Communist killings in places such as My Loc. Read on...

The Struggle for Mastery in Asia
April 13, 2001

Pundits will no doubt spend the next several days arguing over the language of the American apology that brought the crew of the Navy EP-3E surveillance aircraft home from Hainan. They will ask what will happen to the aircraft left behind, and what further actions might be taken as a consequence of Chinese arrogance during a crisis mostly of China's own making. But the largest lesson to be learned from the events of the past two weeks relates to the long term, and is serious in its implications for the future of the U.S. as an Asian power. Read on...

The Insult of Carter's Mass Pardon
Letters to the Editor
February 23, 2001

It is a pleasurable experience to watch Bill Clinton finally being judged, even by his own party, for the ethical fraudulence that has characterized his entire political career. But allowing Jimmy Carter a free pass on the issue of presidential pardons, as was done in a recent piece by his former chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, on this page, ignores both the evidence of history and the trauma that President Carter visited on this country during his earliest days in office ("The First Grifters," Feb. 20). Indeed, it could be said that the seeds of Bill Clinton's political arrogance were sown by Jimmy Carter's own hand. Read on...

Taking on the Status of Quotas
May 22, 2000

For years the debate over affirmative action has desperately needed a "truth teller" whose credentials could not be demeaned because of his own ethnic background or because of allegations of personal bitterness. Read on...

History Proves Vietnam Victors Wrong
April 28, 2000

History is an elusive chimera, shaped and recorded by the winning side. Nowhere in recent times has this proved more true than in the periodic commemorations of the Vietnam War, as we are seeing once again with the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. Read on...

The Novelist Who Put a Human Face on War
December 15, 1999

It has been more than 30 years since I read "Catch-22," but when I learned that Joseph Heller had died on Sunday, the book sprang back at me with a startling vividness. Yossarian in the hospital, censoring letters according to his own random formulas. Major Major, promoted because of his name. Milo Mindbender, the cunning soldier turned profiteer who eventually took advantage of both sides' war weariness by staging an entire battle for a fee. The hilariously inventive schemes to beat the system and come out of the war alive. The quietly tragic moments of death, on the bombing runs and again on the tranquil, protected beaches of their home base when an aircraft goes astray. One can debate many issues regarding the novel and the war it portrayed, but its lasting greatness is beyond dispute. Read on...

The Bridge at No Gun Ri
October 6, 1999

I do not know what happened to the civilians at the bridge near the village of No Gun Ri, although it seems clear from recent Associated Press reports that many of them died in the early days of the Korean War as their country was being ripped apart by a communist invasion and the U.S. Army was thrown into disarray. Read on...

The Media's War on Vietnam Vets
July 15, 1998

Last week CNN founder Ted Turner issued a fervent apology to Vietnam veterans for his network's false report that the military had used sarin nerve gas in Vietnam. "Nothing has upset me more probably in my whole life,' Mr. Turner said, adding that he "would take my shirt off and beat myself bloody in the back" if it would do any good. Read on...

In Defense of Joe Six-Pack
June 5, 1995

Those who debate the impact of affirmative action and other social programs are fond of making distinctions among white Americans along professional and geographic lines while avoiding the tinderbox of ethnic distinctions among whites. But differences among white ethnic groups are huge, fed by cultural tradition, the time and geography of migrations to the country, and not insignificantly the tendency of white Americans to discriminate against other whites in favor of their own class and culture. Read on...

Milo Mindbender Would Be Impressed
July 18, 1988

American commentators have a proclivity for bypassing the jugular on defense issues and going straight for the capillary. So it is unsurprising that media analysis of the shootdown of the Iranian airliner by the USS Vincennes has focused repeatedly on the technical aspects of the Aegis radar system, rather than why the Aegis was positioned 24 hours a day in the Straits of Hormuz, and on whether the captain had sufficient justification to order a shootdown, rather than on who put him in such an untenable situation in the first place. Read on...

U.S. Military: Strength Through Flexibility
January 18, 1988

Mr. Webb is Secretary of the Navy. This is adapted from a speech last week to the National Press Club in Washington.
"If our interests are threatened, the U.S. could react at the point most beneficial to its own strengths -- anywhere in the world. This is the great strength of seapower."
The key question for our leaders in the new year is whether, and how, the U.S. can maintain its commitments throughout the world while reducing the size and force structure of its military. Read on...